09:30am    Fairly late start for me and no trading today as we are off to London to do some Christmas shopping in the next few hours

Market Update:

The main news today is the aftermath of last night’s Federal Reserve interest rate rise of 0.25% upto a seven year high of 0.50%. Across the world, most large economies cut their central bank lending rate in reaction to the 2008 world recession and this rise in the U.S. is a vote of confidence that we are at last seeing some improvement overall in the world’s largest economy. The overnight Asian session was certainly buoyed by the news and ended positively for all indices including the Australian ASX200 which was ahead by 1.4% early this morning.

Gold also endured a volatile session yesterday and suffered after Janet Yellen’s announcement – it reversed downwards at its 20-day moving average and is on bearish trajectory this morning, heading towards the recent low at $1046 – currently sitting at $1068.  The crude oil market suffered more losses yesterday after the weekly oil inventories announcement showed a further rise in stocks. There has been no let up in global production despite record stock levels and U.S. WTI Crude is now just above the $35 level, on its way to the support level at $34.50.